TWINdex:
call for submissions
For centuries, identical twins have captured the interest (and horror) of the countless untwinned, for what they have illuminated in terms of connection, doubling, likeness, and self. Whether in the eye of the eugenicist physicist, such as Josef Mengele who experimented on twins in Auschwitz, or filmmaker Stanley Kubrick’s Diane Arbus-inspired horror of The Shining, through the fetishized eye of the singularly birthed, twins are often flattened and represented as a symbol rather than as distinct individuals in visual culture. TWINDEX reclaims twins’ own identity and experience, featuring scholarly and personal reflections as well as mixed media. Its structure is notably inspired by works like Alice Wong’s Disability Intimacy and Christina Sharpe’s Ordinary Notes.
Despite the rise of twin births over the last two decades from the increased access of fertility treatments and reproductive technologies like IVF, twins are still considered an anomaly, in which the ethics around representing twinhood popularly and critically remain unconsidered. We intend to bridge this gap by offering a model for “ethical” twin studies, one invariably grounded in lived experience, collectivity, community, and autonomy (i.e. advocating for centering twins’ own representation of themselves).
Editors Addie Tsai, Marta Croll-Baehre, and Emma Croll-Baehre are seeking the following individual or joint submissions from scholars, writers, and artists reflecting on twinhood, whether critically, historically, artistically, or personally: scholarly articles (20-25 pages), creative prose (10-15 pages), and mixed media creative responses that can be included in a print anthology, such as visual and hybrid work. We accept reprints and simultaneous submissions.
Please submit an abstract for scholarly articles or a complete creative works by December 31, 2025 to editors Addie Tsai, Marta Croll-Baehre, and Emma Croll-Baehre at twindexanthology@gmail.com.